Disability Services

Disability Services works with students to provide reasonable accommodations for those that have a documented disability, and/or disability-related needs. Disability Services is the only designated office at the College for students to voluntarily disclose a disability, submit appropriate documentation for verification, and request accommodations. Disability Services engages with you in an interactive process to determine reasonable accommodations and ensure an individualized accommodation process.

For staff, faculty, and other non-student professionals on campus, accommodations are coordinated through Human Resources.

If you are looking to report an access issue, please help the College identify them so we can remove the barriers as quickly as possible and maintain access for everyone, by filling out the Accessibility Barriers Form. As a campus and community, we strive to remove barriers to our programs wherever they exist through systematic barrier removal and proper and timely maintenance.

Our core principles

Disability Services is committed to supporting students with disabilities throughout their time at Mount Holyoke. We strive to follow these core principles based on current best practices in the field, legal compliance, and Mount Holyoke policy.

Individualized and interactive process

Disability Services uses an individualized and interactive process when identifying reasonable accommodations for a student. Accommodation Coordinators consider accommodation requests on a case-by-case basis, based on supporting documentation and an intake conversation with a student. Once accommodations are approved, Disability Services staff will collaborate with the student and relevant faculty and staff across campus to implement accommodations collaboratively.

Confidentiality and release of information

We are committed to ensuring that all disability information is maintained confidentially. Your documentation will be securely filed within the Disability Services office. The documentation is not kept with any other student records on campus. The information can only be shared on a limited "need to know" basis within the Mount Holyoke College community. Accommodation letters contain only the accommodation information, and not specifics of the disability or diagnosis(es) itself. You may choose to disclose more details with faculty or staff, but are not obligated to do so. However, in order to implement your accommodations with your professors, you must share your accommodation letter with them.

We cannot re-release documentation, per FERPA policy, as it becomes part of your student record. For this reason, we ask that you only give the office copies of any and all documentation.

Once you matriculate you, as a student, are protected by FERPA. Disability Services cannot legally share information with your anyone, including your family members or care providers, unless we have a signed release from you. If you authorize disclosure of information pertaining to a disability, that authorization may be revoked at any time by providing written notification to Disability Services. However, we are always happy to share general information about our office and receive any information that a family member or clinician would like to share with us.